Cabin Crew

NASA released dozens of photographs of the space shuttle Challenger's smashed crew cabin to a New York man who sued, citing the federal Freedom of Information Act, according to a published report. The 48 pictures were taken after the crew cabin was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean in 1986, the New York Times reported in today's editions. The newspaper published one of the photos showing a damaged section of the cabin's bulkhead.

A passenger jet that Thailand's prime minister was to board exploded and went up in flames 35 minutes before its scheduled departure Saturday, leaving one crew member dead and seven people injured. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was on his way to the Bangkok International Airport in a motorcade when the explosion triggered a massive blaze aboard the parked Boeing 737-400 Thai Airways plane.

British Airways offered to open new talks with the transport workers union, seeking a truce with 8,500 striking flight attendants while averting a separate confrontation with ground workers. The Transport and General Workers Union handles negotiations for the attendants, who walked out Wednesday in a pay dispute, and 9,000 ground workers, irked by the airline's plans to sell in-flight catering operations. The flight attendants' strike, which ends today, has been costly for British Airways.

Re "The air cargo security gap," editorial, Dec. 11 To those who oppose the changes concerning what can be brought on board flights, my opinion is they do not go far enough. Although my fellow field service types and I rarely used tools in flight, we certainly did when we arrived at our destination. We carried them on board because we did not want to run the risk of having our checked baggage lost and not being able to do our job when we arrived. Since 9/11, cabin crew and passengers have taken action and restrained unruly individuals, so the chances of that style attack are effectively zero.

Investigators said Monday that they are focusing on whether the lights were on at a runway mistakenly used by the Singapore Airlines flight that crashed, killing 82 people. If both sides of the runway--which was filled with construction equipment--were illuminated, the pilot could have mistaken it for a clear airstrip, said Kay Yong, managing director of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council and chief investigator. Los Angeles-bound Flight 006, with 179 people aboard, tried to take off Oct.

The Air France jet that skidded into a ravine and burned this week landed farther down the runway than it should have, but it is too soon to know if that was the reason for the crash, aviation investigators said Friday. All 309 people on board survived when Flight 358 from Paris crashed Tuesday at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. The flight data and voice recorders were recovered the next day.

A lawyer for the brother of movie star Michael Douglas said Wednesday that federal charges have been dropped against Eric Douglas for allegedly attacking flight attendants during a flight from New York to Los Angeles. Douglas, 36, had been charged with assaulting and intimidating the American Airlines cabin crew after activating their call buttons and running through the airplane "being loud and obnoxious."

British Airways cabin crews and ground staff called a 24-hour strike for midnight Thursday after talks failed to resolve a dispute over pay and working conditions. The Transport and General Workers Union announced Wednesday night that its 17,000 members would walk out, but said it "remains willing to resume negotiations whenever the company is ready to reconsider its position."

Say it ain't vrai ! The latest airline passenger to go rogue involves French actor Gerard Depardieu, who reportedly urinated on the floor of a plane before the Paris-to-Dublin flight took off Tuesday evening, media reports say. According to a passenger who was interviewed on French radio, Depardieu appeared to have been drinking and said he needed to go to the restroom. Cabin crew members told him to wait until after takeoff. To the astonishment of all, the female passenger identified only as Daniele said, "he stood up and did it [urinated]